With odds like that
by obedientlittlevictor
Summary: They were bound to fail. Mike leaves Paige in Sylmar. Graphic content.


5.

"Hello, is this Mike Warren?" The voice on the other line is grandmotherly, concerned for reasons Mike doesn't understand.

"May I ask who's calling?" He inquires shortly. No one outside of Graceland should even have this phone number, let alone know who it belongs to.

"My name is Violet and I'm a nurse at St. Mary's Medical Center."

Mike pauses, fingers hovering over the keyboard of his laptop and listens for the voices of his roommates downstairs. Not that it would matter much to him. He's been exiled as far as he's concerned, self-imposed reclusiveness to avoid the stares that reflected both resentment and pity. He has nothing but his work, and his desperate and discreet quest to find the truth about Paige.

Everyone is home, not possibly at a hospital.

"Yes, yes, this is Mike," he answers quickly after a beat and tries to steady his breathing. It could very well be a trap, but he isn't sure he cares about his own well-being anymore.

"Mr. Warren, I need you to come to the SMM Trauma Unit immediately," Violet requests, politely brisk and appropriately caring at the same time. "A woman named Lina came in this afternoon, and I cannot give out many details over the phone, but she was– is catatonic. One of our nurses was able to get her to write on a piece of paper. She only wrote down your name and this phone number."

"Lina?" Mike's voice is a cracked whisper and something flutters at the back of his brain. For the first time since he walked into the hellhole in Sylmar months ago, he feels _something_ , something whose name takes awhile to recall.

 _Hope._

"Yes, when she was asked her name, she said Lina. She kept repeating _Lina, Lina_."

Mike can feel the heat of the tears burning trails down his cheeks and when he opens his mouth to ask something, anything, all that comes out is a sob. The nurse must feel sympathy for him because she continues in a calming voice.

"Would you be able to come now? Do you know the address of this hospital? St. Mary's," Grace repeats and Mike must make some affirmative sound; she thanks him and hangs up the phone.

Johnny bounds up the stairs at the same moment, only to find Mike a sobbing mess. "Yo, man, what's going on?"

"Lina doesn't have this phone number," Mike blurts out and he must look like a lunatic with his overflowing tears and crazed grin. Johnny hesitantly takes a step into the room and raises his hands in a passive gesture like he does with a weapon-wielding suspect.

"Mike, buddy, I'm going to need you to explain that one for me," Johnny says with a nervous chuckle. He turns his head and calls out down the stairs. "Hey, guys!"

The roommates are up the stairs in a matter of seconds, the edge to Johnny's voice alerting them that something is off. They gather around the door to Mike's bedroom as he flies around, throwing on a tshirt, jeans, and shoes.

"Fritz lied. I knew he lied," Mike mumbles mostly to himself.

He's in his own world and runs into Johnny's chest, wet eyes finally _seeing_ for the first time since they shut down Sylmar and didn't find a trace of Paige.

"Paige is alive."

* * *

4.

He never drugged her, which surprised her. From the moment he bought her in Sylmar to taking her back to his flashy mansion, the basement she was chained in, even taking her out on his boat tonight, he never gave her a single drug. More than once, she wished she had something to take the edge off, but she needs to stay focused. She pretends it's just another undercover operation, but nothing the DEA could send her on would be as bad as this.

What culminates his inevitable downfall is underestimating her critical will to get back to her life before finding out about the Tinker Bells.

She turns her head to the side and she can see the houses lit on the beachfront. The houses aren't hers, but just the sight hits her like a freight train.

She runs her tongue across her teeth and thinks clearly for the first time since Mike left with Lina and her plan fell through and she was sold. She knows how to captain a boat this size. She just needs to make it to the galley before him, cut the ropes around her wrists, and make it to shore. Then she's home free.

She needs to take him out, make him a threat to her no longer. A threat to no other woman, either.

There's only one way to do that. There's only one way to go home, she realizes.

She has to kill him.

She's never had access to anything that could be construed as a weapon, her hands always bound behind her back, and her feet together except for when he decided to use her. He grunts like a pig in the seconds before he finishes, that much she's learned. When he starts making those disgusting noises now, she runs her tongue across her teeth again.

She has a plan, but she needs to really commit. There's no going back, no half-assing what she's going to do. She wants to go home. She will do anything to go home.

So she sinks her teeth into the skin above his beating carotid artery and jerks her head back. Blood sprays across her face and her torso as he stumbles back, hands futilely grasping at the open gushing wound.

Mike's face flashes before her eyes and she wonders if he ever forgave himself. If he could forgive her now.

She's not proud of what she's done.

Blood drips down her chin.

* * *

3.

"What happened to that feisty one I looked at first? The one is the the tits," Mike throws out the words casually, as if women were nothing but sources of financial gain to him. "The one I took is fine, but I liked that thoroughbred too."

"She was _put down_ after attacking a prospective buyer. Almost ruined my reputation," Fritz responds in a bored tone without looking up from his phone, and Mike wants to slaughter the man on the spot for referring to the women so dismissively.

It takes a moment for the words to sink in to Mike's head and his throat closes up and he can't breathe and everything goes black _blackblackblack_. It's a testimony to how good he is undercover, because Mike just laughs like he's heard the greatest joke ever.

"How'd you kill the bitch?" He's grateful that he's facing the window because even a child could read the emotions on his face.

"Stabbed her, I think. I don't like to get my hands dirty," Fritz shrugs.

When Mike stumbles back into Graceland, he barely makes it through the front door before sending his fist through the wall. Briggs gets home first and one look at Mike tells him all he needed to know.

"You signed her death warrant. You're as good as her executioner."

Mike already knows that.

* * *

2.

"She's a trained federal agent. She knows what she's doing," Mike tries to justify, but the words sound weak, selfish, even to his ears. "We need someone on the inside."

Charlie is the first to react. She stumbles to her feet and retches up her dinner into the nearest trash can. Mike stands and moves toward her, reaching his right hand out toward her shoulder, but before he makes contact, Charlie whirls around, left hand twisting his outstretched fingers until he hears the sickening pop of broken bones, and throws a mean right hook straight into his jaw.

Mike tumbles to the floor and rolls to his left side to cradle his aching face. Charlie's on him in a second and her hands clasp around his throat until he sees stars and black lines his vision. He isn't sure who pulls her off of him. He just closes his eyes against the pain in his lungs and his heart.

"You left her to _die_! You left Paige to _fucking die_ , you fucking bastard! Rot in hell!"

* * *

1.

"Leave me. Take Lina," Paige hisses and the tears streaming down her face nearly brings Mike to his knees. He looks away from her, mindful of the cameras watching their interaction. "You need evidence. I can get that."

It's the hardest thing he's ever had to do, but he takes Lina instead.

The door clicks shut behind him, separating him from Paige.

It sounds like the fall of a guillotine.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Title from Ali in the Jungle by The Hours.**


End file.
